Alec Baldwin Takes on the Movie Industry: It’s a “fetid septic tank”

With so much talk about the current television slate being the new golden age of TV, it’s the perfect time for the upcoming documentary Seduced and Abandoned. The doc, produced by Alec Baldwin and directed by James Toback, focuses on the current state of the movie industry.

Baldwin chatted with the Associated Press about his film and his thoughts on the medium that first brought him fame.

The 30 Rock actor explained his view on what is happening in the industry, “You wind up not having any faith in it, in terms of having a career at it.”

“What I want to say is: The business model in terms of actors making a living at it is collapsing because you can’t get paid to make a movie. Everybody does TV because you’re not out there having to kill yourself to get an audience the way you do in the movie business,” he continued. “People I work with, they want you to become their partner in raising money. They want you to become their partner in collapsing their fees. They want you to become their partner, now, in selling the movie. They want you on a plane going to festivals and you’re on the phone with reporters all the time. The amount of work outside the shooting of the film has become absolutely unconscionable…All the fun of it is gone. You talk it to death.”

While the 55-year-old star does believe that the film industry still makes good films. He just thinks the field is narrowing.

He said, “There are good movies that come along. It just seems that the opportunity to make a good movie, if you do get to make one, takes an extraordinary amount of luck or an extraordinary amount of fortitude.”

Baldwin shared what he thinks needs to happen in order for movies to succeed once again.

“The principle reason movies fall apart is that you don’t have a good director. The most anemic guild in all of the business is the Directors Guild. There are thousands of good actors out there waiting for a job. There are so many unproduced scripts that are good. The real dilemma in the business today: There are not enough good directors. There’s an ocean of mediocre directors,” explained the MSNBC host.

Will the industry listen to Baldwin who calls the movie business a “fetid septic tank?” Only time will tell.

Seduced and Abandoned is currently playing in theaters. It debuts on HBO on Monday, Oct. 28.